


The Little Spoon

by wRexident



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 04:10:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12740736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wRexident/pseuds/wRexident
Summary: Flash piece for mShenko, cuddling.





	The Little Spoon

Kaidan insisted burying his face against the perfect curve of muscle and spine between Shepard’s shoulder blades. He insisted wrapping his arm around those well-defined deltoids and resting a hand on a rounded pectoral. He insisted on feeling the steady, strong rhythm of Shepard’s heart beneath his palm and the rise and fall of his breath against his jaw, softly counting the seconds, the minutes until Shepard was asleep. Shepard never asked for it, never expected it, but Kaidan happily obliged whenever the circadian cycles pulled them together for rest and refuge against stress and utter exhaustion. Shepard didn’t mind. He never did.

Shepard was Kaidan’s home, a sanctuary against all the bad in the Universe, against the thought of being lost and helpless to the atrocities of war. And even though John Shepard had told Kaidan repeatedly that his moral compass was stronger than the commander’s could ever be, it didn’t stop the nagging doubt and guilt from previous encounters—the disagreement on Horizon, where Shepard had greeted him with a smiling face while wearing the banner of Cerberus on his breast, the confrontation on Mars, where he’d openly shown his distrust and doubt of the man who had faced a joint threat without him, and then the mess on the Citadel, where he’d pointed a gun at a man he’d once considered a friend—from drilling into his heart. His mistakes ghosted after his every action. And fearing he’d repeat them, Kaidan held those prayers and anxiety tightly in his heart like a dark secret while desperately and selfishly reaching for Shepard in hopes of being forgiven, of being more. All because found life without Shepard had lacked not only excitement but true challenge. Challenge to grow and change. Challenge to be bold and have a voice. Challenge to rise against all that is wrong despite the difficulty, to take life by the balls. Never before had he felt so enthralled, so alive, and so… embraced. Accepted. Or loved. When he’d discovered Shepard had harbored the very feelings he had also kept hidden, Kaidan couldn’t stay away. How could he? His heart thundered in the man’s presence, reminding him he was alive, that blood flowed through his veins like a deluge, that there was no more holding back reservations for fear of rejection.

Now, it was Shepard he buried his face against, hiding his migraine from the rest of the universe, counting the Commander’s breath and beating of his powerful heart, lost to the daydreams of taking Shepard home to meet his mom. Of having beers on the balcony. Sharing food. Tangling those long, strong fingers in his hair. Waking up in a more peaceful setting without war or conflict, to nothing more than each other, stripped bare inside and out, sharing soft kisses in the morning light. Or the more hungry kisses right before more rigorous activities, the ones that left him breathless and moaning in the darkness, fingers twisted in the sheets; their shared moans echoing one another’s pleasures and ultimately conveying the rightness of their physical unification.

Shepard was home and he’d do everything in his power to preserve him, to preserve the future dream of going back to Earth. Together.


End file.
